Senior Counsel, Regulatory

Who We Are

The Farmer's Dog was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care. We're starting by radically improving the $90 billion pet food industry, replacing bags of highly-processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends complete and balanced, freshly-made dog food directly to customers' doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, delightful and personalized experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future.

To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered over 1 billion meals nationwide and raised over $150M in funding to help us build a company as healthy as the dogs who are eating those meals. Join us as we continue to develop ways of bringing peace of mind to customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

What We Stand For and Where You'll Come In

We are looking for a highly motivated regulatory attorney to join our fast-growing legal team as Senior Counsel, Regulatory, who will manage the regulatory compliance issues across the organization, partner closely with our veterinary team and play an integral role as one of the core members of our Legal Department at The Farmer’s Dog. They will report to the General Counsel, and will work closely with stakeholders across the Company to manage the Company’s day-to-day regulatory issues and compliance needs. The Senior Counsel is expected to further accelerate TFD’s momentum through working with the business to efficiently and proactively identify ways to mitigate risk and eliminate legal blockers. This is a high-impact role perfect for a team player with a passion for law, and of course, dogs!

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically.

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing:  Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own. We proactively source input. We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.

We Execute For Impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.

We Are Focused and Work Without Assumption: We are not beholden to ideas. We have goals and believe everything beyond that is a series of hypotheses to validate. To that end, we seek to work in sequence and not in parallel. We constantly ask ourselves, “what’s the most important hypothesis I should be working on right now? How do I confirm or reject that hypothesis as fast as possible?”. We rarely have timelines/deadlines and are constantly taking in new information and adjusting our priorities accordingly. We don’t expect to be perfect the first time.

How You'll Make An Impact

• Serve as The Farmer’s Dog’s primary regulatory counsel, providing proactive and practical advice and counsel to our internal business partners on a wide array of regulatory issues, partnering with our R&D, Food Safety & Quality and Veterinary teams to assure federal, state and local compliance and anticipate evolving regulations. 
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of all applicable federal (FDA and USDA), state and local regulations, legislation and AAFCO guidance, reviewing and advising on all aspects of product packaging and labeling, ingredients and safety standards.
• Lead and develop our Regulatory legal group by overseeing work and effectively managing performance.
• Provide legal guidance on marketing campaigns, product development, supply chain and food safety laws, practices, quality systems and policies. 
• Manage product-related claims and complaints, partnering with outside counsel as necessary.
• Oversee our Regulatory legal space, including overseeing required regulatory filings, daily responsibilities, goal-setting and coaching direct reports on their growth and development to set them up for long-term success.
• Lead and manage regulatory advocacy efforts to influence policy development and ensure favorable regulatory outcomes.
• Work cross-functionally to develop and implement comprehensive legal strategies, policies, procedures and training to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations and manage legal risk.
• Provide support on other cross-functional legal matters as needed.

We're Excited About You Because

• You have 8+ years (post-law school) of relevant legal regulatory experience, five of which involving food law, in a law firm or corporate legal department. Big Law and in-house experience preferred. 
• You have a J.D. from an ABA accredited law school and admission to the NY bar.
• Extensive experience advising on and ensuring compliance with applicable federal (FDA and USDA), state and local regulations, particularly in food safety, labeling, and marketing.
• You have strong thought leadership and business partnering skills at all organizational levels, with an ability to manage tight timelines and shifting priorities.
• You have excellent communication (written and verbal) skills, the highest attention to detail and ability to communicate clearly and productively with non-legal colleagues.
• You possess a willingness to be flexible and proactive in solving complex challenges, with a proven track record of understanding business needs, finding creative solutions and balancing the interplay between legal and business risk.
• You thrive in a fast-paced environment, are a self-starter, able to prioritize effectively and work both independently and as part of a growing team.
• You love dogs.

Office Guidelines

The office is open and available for all Monday through Friday. We require all team members to be in office a minimum of 2 - 3 days a week to build a collaborative and invested environment to foster our unique in-person culture we are proud to have. This office policy is subject to change at company discretion.

Our DEI Philosophy:

Our company’s mission is rooted in deep, genuine care for dogs – and for the people who love them. As an organization we are full of individuals who are unique in many ways, but all united in a mission of providing true peace of mind to dog lovers everywhere. Fixing this industry and improving the lives of pets and their people will be a difficult, decades-long endeavor. We believe the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a collective team is to focus on this mission, and on supporting our team to do their best work and be their best selves. In support of this we’re committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce, and investing in internal structures, opportunities, hiring/promotions processes, and training that create and sustain an inclusive team. We strive to provide an experience at TFD that will be invested, meaningful and memorable as we progress on the journey to reimagine how we feed and care for our pets.

A Few of Our Best Benefits

• Dog-friendly office in Greenwich Village
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company supported mental health benefits
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO 
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

We commit to building a competitive compensation package and company environment for all individuals to thrive. We believe in competitive base compensation rooted in location specific market data and performance along with equity ownership in the company that allows every team member to build their personal wealth as the company grows, just as much as we believe in fostering a culture that supports our team members personally, professionally, and holistically. For this role the anticipated hiring base compensation range is $175,000 - $205,000 USD Annual and the compensation offered will include a robust market competitive package of base and equity. In addition to your base compensation offer you will also receive equity ownership in the company. More information about the value of this equity will be shared at the time of offer. This range is representative of NYC Market Data if you are applying to this role outside of the NYC area the range may change.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The Farmer's Dog, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic or status. For more information, please visit Know Your Rights.